


A Three-Pipe Problem

by eponymous_rose



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, Community: help_haiti, Crossover, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponymous_rose/pseuds/eponymous_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This happened first. This is happening now. This hasn't happened yet. The Valeyard wanders familiar streets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Three-Pipe Problem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nam_jai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nam_jai/gifts).



**This happened first.**   
_  
[Historian's Note:  
The document that follows is truly one of the strangest Holmesian finds in recent years; it was discovered to have been scrawled haphazardly on a loose sheaf of paper and then tucked into a false bottom of the famous tin dispatch box, which has housed so many wonderful adventures, many of which have yet to be released to the public. This particular work could only represent the good doctor's dabbling in more fantastic realms of fiction, for the events described herein are so peculiar that they could scarcely be the record of anything but a flight of fancy, perhaps penned during a particularly quiet period in the Great Detective's investigations. The poor quality of the handwriting means that several smudges have obscured words in places; there are evidently pages missing; but despite these deficiencies, the remainder has been reprinted in its entirety, unedited.]_

January_ [text obscured]_, 188_[text obscured]_

I must write these words, if only so that someone may have a record of this adventure, fantastic and impossible though it may be. For myself, I am beyond disbelief, having _[text obscured]_ such bizarre occurrences practically on a daily basis since making the acquaintance of one Mr. Sherlock Holmes, as recorded in the case of the_ [text obscured - perhaps intentionally] _and the Giant Rat of Sumatra.

I suspect that many of my readers have, at one time or another, experienced the bizarreness of a stranger passing in the street who shows some sign of recognition, despite the fact that you could not swear to ever having met him before. On a particularly calm and sunny morning, Holmes and I encountered something far more bizarre - and, as it turned out, far more sinister - when a man, a stranger to us both, strode up and claimed to be exceedingly well-acquainted with us.

"A previous patient of yours, Watson?" Holmes made as if to stride past the impertinent man, but he merely drew closer, and in the early light I could see that his clothing was strange, dark, _[text obscured – perhaps "unearthly"]_.

"Oh, you haven't met me yet," he said, with a calm and serene smile that was entirely at odds with the _[text obscured]_. "That won't happen for some time. And when it does, Holmes, I'm afraid I may well sow the seeds of your very destruction, for which I apologize. Apparently my attempts at doing good truly were doomed to failure from the start."

"Indeed," said Holmes, even as I said, "What on earth do you mean by that?"

"Nothing on Earth at all," said the man.__

[Historian's Note: Here pages are evidently missing, though why they were not folded in with the others is open to much scholarly debate.]

went not into, but _through_ the door as though it were not there, and I stood dumbfounded. Glancing over at Holmes, I found him in a similar state of bewilderment, though I could easily spot the cogs of that great mind turning, wrestling with this impossibility. A trick of the light, I thought, a little wildly. Smoke and mirrors.

"You cannot explain it, can you?" The Valeyard emerged in much the same way he had entered, which is to say that he fairly drifted through the door as though it were insubstantial. "I shouldn't try, Holmes. There is no explanation for this."

"Of course there is," Holmes said, and in his voice was a struggle between incredulity and annoyance. I found some solace in the latter. "It may not be an explanation that we have sufficient data to interpret, but there must be an explanation."

The Valeyard heaved an expressive sigh. "I don't quite understand it myself, gentlemen," he said. "The Matrix is a complicated system, and why this little pocket of it would be so well-established is frankly beyond me. I have no recollection of having entered it, and yet-" He waved a hand, which passed right through the brick wall beside him _[text obscured]_. "I suppose I could always entertain at children's parties, if nothing else comes up."

I found my voice, though it sounded faint and distant to my ears. "You spoke of some personal cataclysm you had to avoid."

"Yes," the Valeyard said. "Well, it may be too late for that. I'm trapped here, you see, somehow, and I'm beginning to think that time may have marched right on without me."

"We _[large portion of text obscured]_

"Somebody has tampered with my memories," the Valeyard said. "I remember, now, bits and pieces - trying to steal my own body, you know, which certainly didn't lack a certain measure of originality. But they changed things, made me think I had won, kept me prisoner."

By now, Holmes and I had divested ourselves of any remnants of disbelief; it was a case of being shown far too much evidence to doubt our own eyes. My mind was awhirl with the possibilities, with the sheer _[text deliberately crossed out, several times]._

[Historian's note: From here, the writing becomes less clear, incoherent. The final page, however, is strikingly untouched.]

The Valeyard has found a way to leave, it seems, and he claims that he will never return, but if this experience has taught me one thing, it is that time is a strange and fickle thing. Holmes and I remain unconvinced that we have seen the last of him.

It is my hope that, of all the stories I have set to paper, this one in particular may someday reach the public, if only in a form more suited for said public's consumption. If these events had involved myself alone, I should have put it down to some sort of accidental opiate poisoning, but since my experiences were shared with Holmes – with a man possessing such faculties for clear, logical thought – I trust some suspension of disbelief will be possible.  
_  
[Historian's note: On the back of the first page, the word "Doctor" has been written and rewritten in an unfamiliar hand, circled again and again. Whether this is a reference to Dr. Watson or some other medico is the topic of much debate among scholars.]_

* * *

**This is happening now.**

Holmes lags several paces behind, blanketing his gaze along the crowded street, letting it catch and snag on minutiae as they walk, here a cigarette case forgotten on a street corner, scratched and scuffed beyond recognition, and here the muddy tread-marks of a cat, and here the crumbling of ashes, Trichinopoly, half-ground into the pavement by a shoe that belongs to a man who-

"Anything?"

He looks up; Watson is throwing him one of those sidelong glances, still on that precarious boundary between humouring a friend and diving whole-heartedly into a case. Perhaps a hint, then, a titbit to keep him from surrendering to the siren call of a cup of tea at home. "He has passed this way, but thought to double back and confuse the trail. Clearly he has mistaken me for a particularly dull breed of bloodhound."

Watson sighs. "Right," he says. "I'll be at home if you need me."

"Watson?"

"Oh, come off it, Holmes. We've been wandering in circles for nearly an hour!" Watson waves his hand in exasperation, nearly removes a passerby's hat (spotted here and there with acid stains, a very sloppy chemist indeed), and, with a muttered apology, he lowers his voice. "You haven't even deigned to tell me who or what we may be searching for. In what way is my time better spent here? I may as well be listening to you prattle on about- about the different types of ink used in blackmail letters through the ages-"

"Which is a fascinating - if esoteric - study that I could well consider pursuing in my declining years."

"-and what's more, I don't think you've heard a single word I've been saying. Holmes, this is really too much."

Holmes waits a few moments to be sure he's finished, then says, "You know how much I value your company."

"This never works, Holmes."

"And your ability to document even the most uninteresting elements of the case is absolutely indispensible."

"I can already smell the tea brewing."

"What's more, your ability to follow a case through to the end when even I am uncertain of where it will lead is-" Holmes pauses, for effect, and watches as Watson starts to come around, wholly in spite of himself, the clock in his head ticking inexorably from teatime to half-past mortal peril. "-invaluable."

Watson stares further up the Strand, the way they'd come, and finally turns back to him. "All right. But only if you tell me who we're looking for."

Holmes starts walking again, and Watson falls into step beside him. A horse with a loose shoe has left a particularly messy print, and superimposed on the spattered mud is the faintest trace of a footprint. "Hm?"

"Holmes." A warning tone of voice - he's become distressingly good at that.

"You recall what happened approximately seventeen months ago?"

"You'll have to jog my memory." And now sarcasm, which is rarely a good sign, but it happens to be exquisitely positioned for maximum dramatic effect.

Holmes squares his shoulders. "I believe he has returned."

Watson stops in his tracks, nearly colliding with a trio of bankers (rushing to make an appointment, the one on the left having remembered in time, judging by his immaculate appearance and general air of smugness). "I- Holmes, the Valeyard?"

"Of course."

"I suppose you deduced that by a shift in the breeze last Tuesday."

Holmes pulls a leaf of paper from his pocket. "Though the breeze last Tuesday was highly suggestive, I think you'll find this note, signed 'The Valeyard', to be slightly more obvious."

"Really, Holmes." Watson snatches the page away; Holmes can tell by the way his eyes widen that he's noticed the strangeness of the paper, its glossy look and feel. There are seven other peculiarities about the paper, all leading to the same gaping lack of conclusion. "He wants to meet you somewhere in this area sometime between the hours of three and four o'clock. What are you expecting?"

"Rather like before, I should think," Holmes says. "Inexplicable coincidences. Murder and mayhem. And always this shadowy Valeyard at the root of it all. You may find, Doctor, that your accounts of this particular case could be a very long time in getting published."

"Wonderful," Watson says, and hands back the paper. "I suppose all we can do is-"

He's going to say 'wait', and Holmes knows this with such certainty that he _hears_ it, his senses betraying him, because what Watson is really saying is "Holmes!" and he's pushing forward, looking at something over Holmes's shoulder, and Holmes turns-

Again, his senses are slow to catch up, because it seems like the sound of the pistol is drowned out by screaming before it even happens, and there's a moment in which time splinters, breath catching in his throat, mind trying to calculate the trajectory of the bullet but never able to finish, grasping again and again at the end of an unspooling thread of logic. He's turning, and in the instant before Watson collides with him and sends them both to the ground, he sees a dark-cowled figure staring at him with wide, surprised eyes.

Time starts again, and with it come the little things like breathing and hearing and calculating trajectories - not close enough to have hit Watson, not close enough to have hit either of them, so who was the target, where did the attacker come from, where did he flee to, and a new, less immediate but more pressing question: who sent him?

The people around them are making a considerable amount of noise, and Holmes pushes himself to his feet (rust-coloured dust on the cobblestones; a recent construction project, perhaps), scanning the crowd for a familiar face. "He's here."

Watson is a little slower in getting to his feet, dusting off the knees of his trousers with a wince. "Oh, I'm quite all right, Holmes. And you're very welcome."

"Much as I appreciate the heroic gesture, Watson, we were never in any real danger; I saw the pistol right before it fired, and it was at least four degrees away from even grazing us. No, tempting as it is to presume that all of London's criminal element is constantly intending to murder us, we were not the targets." Holmes catches a glimpse of black in the crowd, and takes Watson's arm, pulling him through the hubbub of the busy streets.

"If you had thought to tell me the purpose of this little expedition, I would have brought my revolver. Holmes, where are we going? There might have been somebody hurt back there."

Holmes stops for a moment, nods down at a fresh smear of blood on the ground. "I believe somebody has indeed been hurt, Doctor, and I suspect I know who that somebody may be."

"The Valeyard? Why would he invite us to the site of his own shooting?" Before Holmes can reply, Watson raises his hands. "Data, data, I know. Don't theorize."

He'd lost sight of the dark figure for a moment, but now he can see the robes disappearing down a small side-street. "There's hope for you yet, Watson."

"I was just thinking the same of you."

Truth be told, he's expecting a more lengthy chase, and he's nearly startled when they round a bend and find the Valeyard leaning against a wall, regarding them with an expression that's a faint mockery of a smile. "Holmes."

Holmes straightens, and finds his eyes lingering on the Valeyard's clothing; bizarre, topped off with a strange, black hood, made of some weave that reflects the light in peculiar ways. "Valeyard. I believe you remember my dear friend and associate, Dr. Watson."

"Charmed," Watson says. Sarcasm again.

"Of course," the Valeyard says. He shifts against the wall, revealing a bloodied shoulder. "It is rather gratifying that you should remember me. I was afraid I'd muddled up the timelines. You know how it is."

Watson steps past Holmes, already moving to inspect the Valeyard's wound. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this little spectacle?"

"I'm a little surprised at it all, really," the Valeyard says, and sinks down to sit on the ground, Watson following, putting pressure on the wound. "I hadn't been entirely certain I could still do this sort of thing. He said I was the distillation of all things evil, you know. Every guilty thought, every muttered curse, every angry shout."

Holmes leans down so his eyes are at the same level as the Valeyard's, which seem bright, feverish. "Watson?"

"I'm not certain what to make of this, Holmes," Watson says, sounding impatient; his hands never stop working. "The wound itself seems to be nothing more than a graze, but his pulse is extremely erratic, and I suspect he is succumbing to shock, judging by the temperature of his skin."

The Valeyard takes hold of Watson's arm, stilling the restless motions, the checking and re-checking. "Do you have any idea what that's like, knowing you're meant to be some terrible force of evil? Seeing yourself in the mirror and knowing you've become what you always feared?"

Holmes is expecting another dose of Watson's now-infamous sarcasm, but instead he merely says, "I believe many men have felt the same way at one time or another," and withdraws his hand quietly from the Valeyard's grasp, resuming his makeshift bandaging.

Leaning in closer, Holmes manages to catch the Valeyard's wandering gaze. "Why did you bring us here? What is it you wanted us to see?"

The Valeyard is silent for a long moment, thinking or careful or struck speechless, and then his eyes clear, and he says, "That I still have the capacity for good. A man was going to be murdered today, and I stepped between him and the bullet. I needed somebody to bear witness, I suppose."

"How did you know?" It isn't, somehow, the question Holmes wanted to ask, but the material of the Valeyard's clothing, and the subtler hints of strangeness, prevent him from asking another.

"Oh, let's not interfere with timelines any more than strictly necessary," the Valeyard says. Watson finishes the bandage and leans back to inspect his handiwork; the Valeyard shrugs, experimentally. "Something of a painful demonstration, but apparently a success."

"Who was this man you saved?"

"A mathematician of some sort," the Valeyard says, and rolls his shoulder again. "Perhaps a professor. Likely insignificant in the grand scheme of things, or I'm not sure even I could have saved him, but the world is now one professor richer than it was before." He stands with a suddenness that takes them both aback. "Thank you, Doctor. A most admirable patching job."

"I believe we still have several questions that you have yet to answer," Holmes says.

The Valeyard raises his eyebrows. "Do you? How disappointing that must be." He pauses. "No, that's quite rude, isn't it? I have to admit, there's something liberating in all this, you know."

Watson snatches at the Valeyard's wrist. "Your pulse is still exceedingly fast. Perhaps a visit to the hospital-"

"Not at all necessary," the Valeyard says, genially. "I thank you for your concern, gentlemen, but I should really be on my way."

"But-"

"Watson." Holmes can't look away from the Valeyard's eyes, the strange almost-desperation veiled by something colder, darker, and he feels as though his words aren't entirely his own. "Let him go."

"If it's any consolation, I can guarantee that you'll see me again," the Valeyard says, and moves past them both to slip seamlessly between the ranks of the milling crowd.

Much later, in the sitting room, enjoying the long-promised cup of tea, Watson asks, "Do you think he was mad?"

"Perhaps." For a time, Holmes lapses into silence, doesn't comment on the uncharacteristic smudge of dirt on the china, on Mrs. Hudson's distracted state of affairs lately; a mystery for another day, an anecdote for another of Watson's stories. "But if he has found some measure of contentment in his madness, who are we to question that?"

* * *

**This hasn't happened yet.**

He will stand half-veiled by shadows, insubstantial in the guttering streetlight, relishing the banality of the situation, of standing dark against dark against dark, of being reduced to a faint outline that catches the eye for mere moments, of nothing-there, of keep-walking, of look-the-other-way, of just-round-this-bend-and-we'll-be-home.

There is, after all, something to be said for dramatics.

He will be surprised to find that skulking in alleyways comes naturally, especially once he accepts that he has become the sum total of his most deplorable attributes overnight. Oh, he's always despised his adversaries' obsession with gloating laughter, and he's especially hated the smug grins that only made a game attempt to conceal the whole of poorly thought-out schemes and machinations. But there will be something about the serenity that comes with this peculiar brand of lunacy that will be appealing - to smile, and smile, and be a villain - and he'll have tried it already, swiping watch and snuff box and pocketbook with a smile, with pleasure, and his victims will have smiled back unknowing, as though he'd done them a favour, given them some new adventure, broken the monotony.

Beyond that, though, he won't feel any different, not really, and that will be the strangest part of all, that this was inside him all along, so strong that once everything else is gone he won't even notice the void.

Two men will approach, ensconced in a comfortable silence, and he will be in the process of blending back into the shadows when one of them will look up, into, through, beyond.

"Well, well," Sherlock Holmes will say. "Hello again, Valeyard."


End file.
